Before The House of Dancing Water

I am in a cavernous theatre, an indoor lake ahead of me encircled by leaves that fall towards the water's edge, a flute having a grand old time in the pentatonic scale as accompaniment. The reason I am here is the reason I am here: without this show then Sophie would not be in Macau and without that I would probably not be visiting, or not so soon at least. The scale, budget, opulence and spectacle are as epic in proportion as any of the myriad of skyscrapers and towers that surround the theatre. I do not think there is a Cantonese word to express the crowd's anticipation, as one Chinese boy walked past my seat and said "holy shit" when he saw the stage. 

I will do a second blog after I have seen the show this Saturday night, but until then I will quickly recap what I have been up to in the meantime. I spent Friday in the old town of Taipa, the island where I  staying. The Portugese influence on the architecture is definitely apparent here. I managed to be totally English and get a perfect lobster-red sunburn on my arms. Always appreciated. 

In the evening I went to a food fair in Macau. Definitely started to see more of the interesting foods on the Chinese spectrum here. There were definitely highs: mango pancakes were a definite highlight, and chocolate bacon suddenly makes so much sense to me. But durian is beyond my culinary limits. It's a fruit that tastes like wet dog and sweat. I can still taste it in my darker moments. 

I think my overriding memory of the evening would be the sounds of Asian cabaret, dutifully aped by Johnny in the the taxi back to Taipa. If I had an image it would be Sophie spilling a drink in a bar, watching it be wiped across a table into a  glass, and then poured back into a shot glass for her to finish off second time around. Hygiene people! I'll blog about the show when I get chance. Catch y'all later!